Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 107720 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 539(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107720 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 539(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
I smiled as things shut down.
My eyes grew heavier as the cold switched to heat.
It felt as if I slipped into a nice warm bath as the breeze died down.
The ice felt soft.
The snow stopped falling.
And the tug to slip into sleep wrapped around my thoughts, cut me from this existence, and I slipped into endless freedom.
Chapter Forty-Five
One hundred years...
Chapter Forty-Six
Two hundred years...
Chapter Forty-Seven
Three hundred years...
I WOKE TO DARKNESS AND THE SMELL OF WET stone.
My soul began to coalesce, bringing with it senses and the ability to see and smell and feel.
Lying on damp rock, I inhaled the sharp musk of minerals and sulphur, trying to get my bearings.
Where am I?
Blinking, I swung my bare legs off the ledge.
My body obeyed me instantly, effortless and powerful. I had vague recollections of pain and suffering, but now I hummed with pure strength.
Frowning, I raised my hands. Golden light flickered faintly beneath my skin like smouldering embers. I flexed my fingers, activating a raw, endless power. It thrummed and purred, waiting and obedient...
Swallowing hard, I stood.
I rose easily and painlessly, almost as if my body had remade itself in my sleep.
W-Who am I?
Running faintly glowing hands down my body, I tried to remember.
Where are my clothes?
I stepped toward the light beckoning at the mouth of the cave.
Barefoot, I crossed loose pebbles and water tracks, but it didn’t hurt.
Stopping on the edge of the cavern, I frowned at the view.
Snatches of memories said a glacier ought to be here: a frozen field of ice as far as the eye could see, yet...now a vast landscape of raw black stone and vibrant green moss twinkled in the sun. A wide valley vanished into the distance, braided with rivers glittering like blue threads. Tussock and bushes grew in patches while wildflowers scattered across the rock like colourful graffiti.
My heart skipped a beat as I tried to understand.
Where the hell am I?
Tracing my fingertips over my bare chest, I searched my mind for what might’ve happened. I tried to remember yesterday or last month—
I froze.
Wait.
My eyes dropped to my body.
Something was wrong...
Pressing my fingers harder against my chest, I struggled to understand. Something was different. No scars. No wounds. No—
Vitalsync core.
I struggled to recall what exactly that was but...it seemed important. Hazy memories tried to tell me that someone had inserted the device into my flesh, and I’d wanted it gone for a very long time.
And now it was gone...somehow.
None of this makes any sense.
Biting back a curse, I turned to head back into the cave only...something caught my eye.
A black smudge just outside the cave glimmered in the morning brightness, almost as if the sun shone a spotlight on it, making sure I wouldn’t miss it.
The urge to go to it made my legs move without conscious command. Scrambling down the rocks, I traversed the small landslide.
The black smudge was larger than I first thought, half-entombed in a chunk of ice.
A creature of some kind—half-frozen in the last shard of a glacier that’d been melting for millennia.
I stepped closer—
I stiffened as my bare feet stepped on bone.
My heart kicked as I backed up, studying the long-forgotten remnants of what looked like a person. A skeleton and skull were perfectly preserved as if someone had died beside this creature. Unlike the animal, he hadn’t been entombed in ice, left to rot and decay.
Gingerly picking my way around the bones—not wanting to disturb the person’s rest—urgency filled me to see more of the beast. My entire body ached with the need to touch it.
You’re morbid.
Still didn’t stop me from clambering up the small ridge and moving around the chunk of glacier until I could see its face. The frozen water distorted it...
Was it a jaguar?
A lion?
I tipped forward, my heart aching, aching.
I staggered as I lost my balance.
My hand landed on the animal’s haunches.
Disgust ripped through me at the icy wetness—the eerie firmness of a body that hadn’t decomposed and—
A flood of memories slammed into me.
The lab. The tests. The pain.
Cinderkeep, Ashfall Cliff, revenge, love, and loss.
Fresh agony tore through my heart as I doubled over.
Everything unravelled.
I saw the past that’d ticked onward while I’d been sleeping.
I witnessed every day of history as the wheel of time spun, blurring decades into a single stream of thousands of days and hundreds of years. An endless carousel of glaciers retreating, rivers carving new paths, land rising, mountains falling. Of humans coming and going. Of technology flourishing and failing. Of Dillon growing old and Whisper aging right alongside him. I saw funerals and births. Sunsets and sunrises. Life turning and twisting, burning and freezing, all while I’d been somewhere else.
And through it all.
Through every night and every year, Whisper had stayed.
He’d somehow known where I was and guarded me, protected me—waiting for me to open my damn eyes and find him.